Derisive diatribes about the state of the nation, nation states and swerving leftward

8 January 2005

The right to ignore rights

Thoughts of an Average Woman has an excellent post on the U.S. detainees. This is such an important issue that I'll take the liberty of quoting her post in full:

The US is holding at least 325 foreign fighters, of which none are entitled to protections under the Geneva Conventions.

Think about this for a few minutes...if you have someone locked up for a year, two years, three years (like we have at Gitmo) how up-to-date do you think any information that we might possibly get, after that amount of time, would be? And don't you think OLD OUT-DATED information would put our troops in harms way just as much as false or no information? But, I digress.

This nugget of information comes to public light during the Gonzales confirmation hearings. The same man that brought us the conclusion that these human's don't have protections under the Geneva Convention, and asserted as much during his testimony this week (as well in his pre-released prepared testimony).

Asked about the review of non-Iraqi prisoners now under way, the officials have left open the possibility that more could be transferred to secret facilities run by the C.I.A. outside the United States. Those facilities are believed to house a total of about two dozen suspected high-ranking officials of Al Qaeda, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and others.

When administration officials first described the legal opinion on detainees in Iraq in October, they acknowledged that the transfer of non-Iraqis by the C.I.A. had already taken place.

Until last fall, the administration had asserted that the full protections of Geneva, including the prohibition on the transfer of prisoners, applied broadly to the conflict in Iraq, and had given no indication that any exception was being made for non-Iraqis.

Altogether, the United States military still holds about 8,500 prisoners in Iraq, including about 7,500 at three main prisons in Iraq and an 1,000 or so at temporary battlefield detention centers. All are classified as security detainees, American military officials say.

Based on current actions, we will be holding these 8500 people indefinately. That means feeding them and housing them. And, if there is NO PROOF that an individual detainee has any actual link to Al Queda, they will remain in limbo, their mothers and wives wondering if they are dead or alive, until someone has the sense to let them go.